The Devotion to the
Sacred HeartFr. John Croiset, S. J.Originally published
in1691;Nihil Obstat and Imprimatur,
1959TAN Books
and Publishers

Part
Two:Means of Acquiring this Devotion

Chapter
3THE MEANS FOR SURMOUNTING THE
OBSTACLES THAT PREVENT US FROM DERIVING FRUIT FROM THE DEVOTION TO THE
SACRED HEART

Tepidity, self-love, pride
and the indulgence
of our pre-dominant passion are, as we have seen, the principal sources
of our imperfections, and the greatest obstacles which prevent us from
deriving the fruit which we should from the devotion to the Sacred
Heart
of Jesus. While our love for God is still feeble and languid, we
nourish
dangerous enemies within us; and without, we have the devil tempting
us,
the world alluring us, and occasions of sin and bad example all around
us. we must therefore be on our guard and close the doors of the senses
against the enemies that lay siege to us, otherwise they will became
masters
of our hearts.

"It is strange," says a
great servant of God,
"how many enemies we have to fight as soon as we resolve to become
holy."
Everything seems to declare war against us; the devil by his artifices,
human nature by the opposition it offers to our good desires, the
praise
of the good, the mockery of the wicked, the solicitations of the tepid,
the example of those who pass for virtuous, and who are not so. If God
visits us, vanity is to be feared, if He withdraws from us, we become
timid;
discouragement may succeed great fervor, and so forth.

What, then, are we to do?
Sanctity does not consist
in being faithful for a day or a year, but in persevering in virtue and
increasing it until death. We must make use of the means which all the
Saints employed, and which, Jesus Christ Himself assures us, are the
most
proper to weaken and destroy that self-love and secret pride which are
the sources of these obstacles. These means are: mortification and
humility.
We must therefore be resolved to become truly humble and perfectly
mortified,
or renounce the idea of acquiring the perfect love of Jesus Christ.

- First
Means -TRUE MORTIFICATION

Mortification is a
necessary disposition for the
true love of Jesus Christ; this was the first lesson that Christ gave
those
who wished to be His disciples; without mortification no one can expect
to be a true follower of Him. Accordingly, all the Saints had this
distinguishing
mark of perfect mortification. When people praised the virtue of anyone
in the presence of St. Ignatius, he would intimate that true
mortification
is inseparable from true piety, not only because virtue cannot exist
long
without general and constant mortification, but also because without
mortification
there can be no true virtue.

There are two kinds of
mortification: exterior,
which consists in bodily austerities; and interior, which consists in
repressing
all inordinate affections of the mind and heart. Both kinds are
necessary
to perfection and cannot exist apart from one another. Fasting, vigils
and other mortifications of the body are powerful means to become truly
spiritual and really perfect; when used with discretion, they help
wonderfully
to strengthen human nature, which is cowardly when there is question of
doing good, but very eager to do evil; they are of great assistance
also
to repel the attacks and avoid the snares of the common enemy, and to
obtain
from the Father of Mercies the helps necessary for the just, especially
for beginners.

Sanctity, it is true, does
not consist in exterior
penances, and they are not incompatible with hypocrisy; but it is not
so
with interior mortification. It is always a certain mark of true piety,
and so is more necessary than exterior mortification, and no one can be
reasonably dispensed from it. This is the violence which we must do to
ourselves in order to possess the Kingdom of Heaven. Not everyone can
fast
or wear a hair shirt, but there is no one who cannot be silent when
vanity
prompts him to speak; there is no one who cannot mortify his human
nature,
his desires and passions. This is what is understood by interior
mortification
by which a person weakens and conquers his self-love, and by which he
he
gets rid of his imperfections. It is idle to flatter ourselves that we
love Jesus Christ if we are not mortified; all the fine sentiments of
piety
and devotional practices are suspect without perfect mortification.

It is not enough to mortify
ourselves in some
things. for some time; we must, as far as possible, mortify ourselves
in
everything and at all times, with prudence and discretion. A single
unlawful
gratification allowed will do more to make us proud and rebellious than
a hundred victories over it. A truce with the enemy is victory for him;
the soul must be surrounded on all sides by a hedge of thorns. This is
so, because if mortify ourselves in but one thing, permitting
satisfaction
in something else, we open the gates of the senses to all sorts of
distractions.

The exercise of interior
mortification, so common
in the lives of the Saints is known by all who have a real desire to be
perfect. The ardent love of Jesus Christ makes people so ingenious,
that
the courage and energy which they display and the means of mortifying
themselves
with which the Holy Spirit inspires even the most uncultured people,
surpass
the genius of the learned and can be regarded as little miracles. There
is nothing which they do not make an occasion to contradict their
natural
inclinations; there is no time or place which does not appear proper to
mortify themselves without ever going beyond the rules of good sense.
It
is enough that they have a great desire to see or speak, to make them
lower
their eyes or keep silent; the desire to learn news, or to know what is
going on, or what is being said, is for them a subject of continual
mortification
which is as meritorious as it is ordinary, and of which God alone is
the
Witness. The appropriate word, a witticism in conversation, can bring
them
honor, but they make it a nature of sacrifice. If they are interrupted
a hundred times in a serious employment, they will reply a hundred
times
with the same sweetness and civility as if they had not been
interrupted.
Finally, the inconveniences of place and time and persons, suffered in
a manner to make people believe that we do not feel them, are small
occasions
of mortification, but the merit is great. It may be said that great
graces
and even sublime sanctity usually depend on the generosity with which
we
mortify ourselves constantly on these little occasions. Exact
fulfillment
of the duties of one's state and conformity in all things to community
life without regard to one's inclinations, employment, or age involve
that
continual mortification which is not subject to vanity but which
conforms
to the spirit of Jesus Christ: Modesty, recollection, reserve, honesty,
sweetness and civility, without which it is difficult to have interior
peace and to be content with what God wills.

- Second
Means -SINCERE HUMILITY

"Jesus Christ," says St.
Augustine, "does not
say to us" 'Learn of Me to work miracles,' but 'Learn of Me
because I am meek and humble of heart,' in order to show us that
without
humility there can be no true piety." People are sufficiently persuaded
of this necessity, but the difficulty is to know what true humility
consists
of. Many think themselves humble if they have a low opinion of
themselves,
but they are not pleased when others have the same opinion of them. It
is not enough to know we have no virtue or merit, we must believe it
and
be satisfied when others believe it. The first step in acquiring this
virtue
is to demand it constantly from God; the next, to convince ourselves of
our imperfections by frequent and serious reflection on ourselves. The
remembrance of what we have been and what we might have become without
the grace of God, are powerful helps to keep us humble. Really good
people
think little of others, but pay attention to themselves in the sense
that
they are not scandalized because their weakness is known to themselves:
they see themselves so near the abyss, and fear so much to fall in,
that
they are not surprised that others do fall in.

The less one speaks of
oneself, the more one is
in conformity to true humility. An affected claim to have a low opinion
of ourselves is often for the purpose of making people praise us. The
truest
marks of humility are: to cherish those who despise us, not to avoid
the
humiliations which present themselves, to not take pleasure in vain
thoughts
and projects about the future which serve only to nourish secret pride,
never to speak in praise of ourselves, never to complain of what God
permits
to happen to us, or wish to be pitied, not to be troubled by our falls;
to excuse the faults of our neighbor, to defer in everything to others,
to distrust ourselves in our undertakings, and to have a low esteem of
what we accomplish; finally, to pray much and speak little.

When we know that we are
miserable, we do not
mind being despised, because we know it is just. A humble man always
thinks
he has been justly dealt with, however badly he may be treated; he says
that those who mistreat him are right and that they are of the same
opinion
as God and His angels. A man who has deserved Hell should find that
contempt
that is due him. We do not mean to say that we should take pleasure in
humiliation, only that we should not complain, to be silent when
despised,
to thank God for contempt and to pray for those whom God has permitted
to humiliate us. We shall not have peace if we do not forget ourselves,
forgetting even our own spiritual interests in order to seek only the
pure
glory of God.

We have reason to be
astonished that people find
difficulty in believing that happiness can be found in continual
mortification,
when they see every day so many people in the midst of all kinds of
amusements
unhappy and discontented. If there are invisible sufferings, is it not
possible that there are secret consolations? Blessed Claude de la
Colombiere,
with the permission of his superiors, had made a vow to observe
all
the rules of his order and, in particular, he had bound himself to
practice
continual mortification in all things. Blessed Claude recorded in his
JOURNAL
OF SPIRITUAL RETREATS, that he found himself giving thanks for the
grace
to make the vow, for he discovered a liberty of heart which caused him
incomparable joy. The experience of this great servant of God shows us
that it is not only the Saints who have preceded us who have found such
sweetness and consolation in the exercise of universal, constant
mortification,
but that people with whom we lie experience the same thing as soon as
they
are generous enough to mortify themselves continually.